Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Golden beauty

My poor Mellow Yellow rose... it's had a tough go. It had buds when I brought first brought it home, but but between lawn service and whatever creature was raiding the bird feeder, it lost them all before they could bloom. And of all the roses, it seemed to struggle the most with pests. It's poor leaves were badly bug-eaten. Mid-july, it finally seemed to be perking up, and over the last few weeks, it's really started to fill out. And finally,

There are seven buds in fact. It will be quite spectacular when they all bloom I think.

And Queen Elizabeth is almost ready to bloom again. The flowers lighten quite a bit as it blooms, but I love the deep dark pink of the buds.

The Black-Eyed Susans never seem to stop blooming. In fact, I've even cut flowers for vases... for Mom, and coworkers, and myself... the plant just keeps going. And while the daisies have stopped flowering, you can see the Echinacea has stepped up.

The bees really love this one! Especially the bumblers!

The cooler summer hasn't been as kind to the tomatoes... they are nice and bushy, but last year they were much taller - and had a lot more fruit. Oh well, we are still getting a nice nibble.

The blackberries haven't been nibbled completely yet... and they are very bright red now, though still very hard. Shouldn't be long before they get all dark and juicy.

And look!

I figured the raspberries were all done, (I hadn't expected much with them being so new) but each plant has a couple of new bunches like this! If I can get them before the birds, I'll have a decent haul for the first year!